Highview Power Storage, a UK company headquartered in central London, England

Developer/Operator:

Highview Power Storage

Suppliers:

Slough Heat and Power owned by SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy)

Funding:

Private, with £1.1m co- funded by the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)

Date:

Commissioned July 26, 2011

Opportunity

Highview has developed a novel utility scale storage system, using liquefied air as the energy storage medium. The technology uses mature components and in addition to storage, Highview systems can simultaneously utilise industrial waste heat/cold from industrial processes to improve the systems’ efficiency. The technology is scalable, has a long lifetime (30+ years), and has no geographical constraints. The technology uses no exotic/rare materials and produces no harmful emissions.

Approach

Highview’s system brings a new approach to energy storage that offers grid-scale solutions at a lower capital cost than pumped hydro and at a scale and storage cost that many batteries find hard to achieve. The technologies at the heart of Highview’s system combine known components from the industrial gas and electricity generation industries assembled in a novel process. Along with providing a mature global supply chain, Highview expects this to provide a shorter product validation period and lower technology risk than most new technologies being introduced in the clean tech and energy storage space.

The 350kW/2.5MWh pilot plant complies with all the regulations and inspections necessary to be allowed to connect the system to the UK grid and is now in its 4th year of operation.

Results

The system is fully operational and delivering power back to the grid. Highview is currently using the plant to test different operational modes, and demonstrate the technology and its process to OEMs, potential customers and government departments rather than for commercial use. Along with regular site visits by industry, academics and government advisers, the plant and the technology/cycle has seen a number of independent technological reviews (commercial and academic), concluding no significant issues in scaling up the technology and endorsing Highview’s findings within an acceptable range.

In February 2014, Highview was selected by the UK Government’s, Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and its site host Viridor, to design a new 5MW/15MWh LAES system. The project will be supported by £8million ($13.4m) of funding provided by DECC and will support the design and testing of a pre-commercial demonstration LAES system alongside Viridor’s landfill gas generation plant at its facility in Greater Manchester, UK.

After conducting technological due diligence, including examination of test data from the plant, the Messer Group, Basil Read Energy and GE Oil & Gas have signed commercial partnerships with Highview. The global licencing and technology collaboration agreement with GE will explore opportunities to integrate LAES technology in peaker power plants where GE gas turbines and gas engines are currently or will be installed.